[Translate] California’s incoming attorney general, Congressman Xavier Becerra, is poised to lead states resisting the Trump administration. By David Dayen THE NATION.COM Xavier Becerra speaking at the fourth session of the 2016 Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Rex Images via AP Photo) On Monday, the first day of the new legislative session in the unofficial capital of liberal America, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon was defiant in his opposition to Donald Trump. “Unity must be separated from complicity,” Rendon thundered. “Californians do not need healing. We need to fight.” The legislature kicked off that fight with a mostly symbolic resolution urging Trump “to not pursue mass deportation strategies” that one lawmaker likened to ethnic cleansing. Other bills introduced Monday seek to fund grants for...

[Translate] Robyn Purchia THINK PROGRESS Environmental writer, attorney, and activist. Farmers could find a big payoff by using waste from cities. Loading compost at the West Marin Compost facility in Nicasio, Calif. CREDIT: Robyn Purchia As the sun rose over the soggy northern California town of Nicasio earlier this week, six trucks made their way along a muddy path. They were the first of a team selected to deliver compost to 15 ranches throughout California. A small group of onlookers — people who have seen compost’s impact on carbon levels and agricultural production and believe California is on the brink of a compost boom — were excited. “It’s a $67,000 day for me,” John Wick of the California Carbon Project told ThinkProgress. Wick and his wife, writer, illustrator, and biotech heiress Peggy Rathmann, are paying for the compost out of...

[Translate] By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org VIA TRUTHDIG Ed Uthman / CC BY 2.0 California is now the capital of liberal America. Along with its neighbors Oregon and Washington, it will be a nation within the nation starting in January when the federal government goes dark. In sharp contrast to much of the rest of the nation, Californians preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a 2-to-1 margin. They also voted to extend a state tax surcharge on the wealthy, and adopt local housing and transportation measures along with a slew of local tax increases and bond proposals. In other words, California is the opposite of Trumpland. The differences go even deeper. For years, conservatives have been saying that a healthy economy depends on low taxes, few regulations, and low wages. Are conservatives...

[Translate] A report warns the decades-long diversion of rivers that feed San Francisco Bay has put the vital ecosystem on the verge of collapse. (Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) TAKE PART DAILY John R. Platt covers the environment, technology, philanthropy, and more for Scientific American, Conservation, Lion, and other publications. California’s vibrant and biodiverse San Francisco Bay, the biggest estuary on the West Coast of North America, is running out of freshwater. In some years, as much as two-thirds of the freshwater that would normally reach the bay—an estuary where freshwater and ocean water mix—is diverted for urban and agricultural use, effectively starving the ecosystem, according to a new report from the Bay Institute, an environmental organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the local watershed. “When you alter the hydrology of a major aquatic...

[Translate] Scientists identify carcinogenic substances in oilfields supplying wastewater to irrigate food crops, Center for Biological Diversity VIA ALTERNET South Belridge Oil Fields, Highway 33, Kern, California Photo Credit: Hamish Reid/Flickr CC BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — People in California’s Central Valley could be drinking water tainted by cancer-causing chemicals used in oilfields, and current water-testing procedures would not detect these substances, according to a scientific report recently released by researchers at PSE Healthy Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California and the University of the Pacific. “Given these shocking findings, California regulators should immediately halt the use of oil-waste fluid in any procedure that could contaminate the water we drink or the food we eat,” said John Fleming, a staff scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity and member of the Protect California Food coalition and...

[Translate] Environment There are significant pros and cons, making fracking a highly controversial issue. By Reynard Loki / AlterNet KERN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 26, 2013: Pumpjacks extract oil from an oilfield in Kern County, CA. About 15 billion barrels of oil could be extracted using hydraulic fracturing in California. Photo Credit: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com Arsenic. Cadmium. Chromium. Radon. Lead. These are just a few of the toxins used in hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, a controversial drilling process to retrieve oil and natural gas from shale deposits under the surface of the Earth. Concerns about the process have been mounting, as studies have linked it to a host of environmental and public health problems, from increased infant mortality and low birth weight babies to the release of cancer-causing radioactive gas, contamination of drinking...

[Translate] Google, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, U.S. Census Bureau Wet prince of bel air Who pumped millions of gallons of water during California’s drought? By Michael Corey and Lance Williams GRIST This story was originally published by Reveal and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Los Angeles officials have steadfastly refused to identify the Wet Prince of Bel Air, the homeowner who pumped an astonishing 11.8 million gallons of water during a single year of California’s crippling drought. The city said naming water-wasting customers wasn’t in the public interest, even after Reveal found last fall from The Center for Investigative Reporting that 100 residents of wealthy neighborhoods on the Westside of L.A. were pumping millions of gallons of water apiece, drought or no. And one household in...

[Translate] by Tafline Laylin INHABITAT View Slideshow Cold hard science in the clean energy space has a wonderful way of debunking misinformation fueled by politics and corporate greed, and nobody does that better than the husband and wife team behind the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI). Elizabeth and Monoian and Robert Ferry have dished up an illuminating new infographic which demonstrates how much surface area is required to transition California away from energy sources that jeopardize planetary health to 100 percent renewables; take a closer look after the jump. LAGI writes: “Starting in 2009 with the Surface Area Required to Power the World with Solar, we have been making the case that the renewable energy transition, while a huge undertaking, is not any more ambitious in scale than previous human endeavors, and that the...

[Translate] by Yelena Sukhoterina ALTHEALTHWORKS.COM Autism rates in the US have been rising since the 1980s. In 1985 autism prevalence was 1 in 2,500, ten years later it jumped to 1 in 500, and today it is an astonishing 1 in 68 children. More and more researchers and doctors are raising red flags as they see more evidence that this epidemic is related not only to environmental, food, and water toxins, but specifically to those in vaccinations. In 1995, the immunization schedule for children had 19 vaccinations before the age of 16. In 2001, that number is now 28 before the age of 18. Following the 2016 schedule, a child can receive up to 72 vaccinations if they have all the doses of the vaccines, all the boosters, and a double-dose of the annual flu shot...

[Translate] By Juan Cole TRUTHDIG The Iowa Utility Board has approved a $3 bn. MidAmerica wind farm project which will be the country’s largest, due to come on line in 2019, and which will generate enough electricity to power 800,000 homes! I looked this up, and there are only about 1.2 million households in Iowa! This one project could power 2/3s of the state’s homes! Of course, you still have commercial uses of power, and then the transportation sector includes 4.3 million registered vehicles, which are almost all fueled by carbon-emitting petroleum. But still, you have to wonder if Iowa will be the first 100% green energy state. (Iowa has the advantage of being a midwest wind corridor; some other areas of the country, like the Deep South, are much less well endowed...

[Translate] How do I know we are winning? Easy? Reactions to our efforts are getting more strident. Near panic reigns… Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen Current Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) leadership is in desperation mode, running from the crumbling precipice, probably from being notified by their Big Pharma Masters that those twice-the-pay Pharma jobs they are promised are going to disappear if they don’t do something, anything, everything, to stop the burgeoning, hugely successful, anti-vaccination movement. Americans are becoming more and more aware that vaccines are, in reality, Made-in-China death pus tubes that are neither safe nor effective, but in fact, literally horrible. So, what does CDC leadership do to save their big payoffs? Or, should I say, TRY to save their big payoffs? They come out with a...

[Translate] Stuff that matters GRIST Good idea REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson lawsuit. Under the terms of a settlement, Pomona, California, will stop arresting people for sleeping outside and start setting up lockers for homeless people to store their property. The city was sued, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, because it confiscated and destroyed personal property during homeless sweeps. As part of the settlement, Pomona will build 388 lockers for people to store their property and won’t enforce three laws that prohibit people from erecting tents and sleeping overnight on public property until enough shelter beds become open for the homeless. But the city may resume enforcement of those laws when those beds are available. Those involved in the lawsuit praised the settlement as a model for other cities to follow. But the settlement is a short-term fix, not a solution....

[Translate] fire By Andrew C. Revkin Photo A view of the “Erskine Fire,” which raced through grassy hills and small towns in Kern County, Calif., in late June, killing a married couple.Credit Photograph by Michael Cuffe Photo A deadly 58-square-mile blaze destroyed 200 homes in central California in late June.Credit Associated Press The West, and federal taxpayers, have a serious and growing problem as communities continue to expand in and around forested and grassy landscapes prone to fire. As Headwaters Economics has shown so vividly in fine-grained maps, there is a vast amount of developable land in vulnerable zones that, without changed policies, will greatly increase exposure to hazard, and do so even as climate change boosts odds of fire-friendly conditions. The list of government reports, scientific studies and media accounts warning of terrible...

[Translate] Environment A little-known program under federal environment law is being used to permit oil and gas companies to inject waste into the state’s aquifers, even as the thirst for groundwater grows. By Abraham Lustgarten / ProPublica VIA ALTERNET Oil field in California’s Central Valley. Photo Credit: IRC/Shutterstock As the western United States struggles with chronic water shortages and a changing climate, scientists are warning that if vast underground stores of fresh water that California and other states rely on are not carefully conserved, they too may soon run dry. Heeding this warning, California passed new laws in late 2014 that for the first time require the state to account for its groundwater resources and measure how much water is being used. Yet California’s natural resources agency, with the oversight and consent of the...

[Translate] The U.S. announced new rules to protect whales and dolphins in international waters, but not in California Reynard Loki, AlterNet Topics: AlterNet, bycatch, California, fisheries, Fishing, Science, sustainability, Sustainability News, Business News (Credit: Masahiro Suzuki/Shutterstock) This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Until the 1980s, fishermen who fished for swordfish off the coast of California used harpoon guns to reel in their prey. As the industry modernized, the guns were exchanged for drift gillnets — gigantic nets the size of the Golden Gate Bridge that hang vertically in the water. By 1985, the catch reached a historic high, with fishermen landing more than 2,000 metric tons of fish. But there was a tragic and under-discussed consequence of that approach. A drift gillnet catches far more than just the target fish. It scoops up any marine...

[Translate] No one is exempt anymore. Vaccines Credit: Shutterstock According to reports, one school district in Sacramento refused to admit 145 unvaccinated students on the first day of school. The kids in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District were sent home for lack of immunization records, as a result of the new state law in California which took effect in July 1, eliminating personal/religious belief exemptions for vaccines. New Law Credit: Shutterstock According to the Sacramento Bee, the new new law mandates that students entering the two “checkpoint years” of kindergarten and seventh grade must now provide full vaccination records. And notifications are sent home, reminding parents of the need for their vaccination records to be...

[Translate] After the historic outpouring of families to halt the passing of SB-277 last Wednesday in California, information has now been made public to further put into question the bill’s credibility. After passing the Sacramento Health Committee vote, the bill was delayed as committee chair Senator Carol Liu wisely told the bill’s author Richard Pan “If I were you, I would not take a vote today.” At the conclusion of the vote, Liu asked Senator Pan point blank how he wanted to proceed. To this, Pan, appearing to have no power to make the decision, turned to lobbyist Jodi Hicks and Janus Norman for advice. It is telling that here, the authors Senator Pan and Ben Allen appear to be told what to do and how to do it. Pan is making his...

[Translate] The film Vaxxed could be outlawed in California, if this bill passes… California bill AB 1671 “Let’s see, Mr. Reporter. You received an undercover recording of a medical researcher confessing his crimes. You posted the recording and wrote about it. You’re the one who is guilty of a crime. Next case!” “Wait, Your Honor! That recording is vital information for the public. It shows that a vaccine considered to be safe actually causes brain damage in children.” “No. It shows you violated the law by posting the recording. It was illegally made, and you aided and abetted and forwarded that crime. As I said, next case!” Buckle up. The shocking film Vaxxed (trailer) is drawing audiences all over the country. It details the confessions of a CDC researcher, William Thompson, who states that...

[Translate] by Tafline Laylin INHABITAT.COM View Slideshow The infrastructure California needs to generate energy for electricity and clean water need not blight the landscape. The Pipe is one example of how producing energy can be knitted into every day life in a healthy, aesthetically-pleasing way. One of the finalists of the 2016 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition for Santa Monica Pier, the design deploys electromagnetic desalination to provide clean drinking water for the city and filters the resulting brine through on-board thermal baths before it is reintroduced to the Pacific Ocean. “LAGI 2016 comes to Southern California at an important time,” write Rob Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian, co-founders of the Land Art Generator Initiative. “The sustainable infrastructure that is required to meet California’s development goals and growing population will have a profound influence...

[Translate] The following open letter by a PhD Immunologist completely demolishes the current California legislative initiative to remove all vaccine exemptions. That such a draconian and cynical state statute is under consideration in the ‘Golden State’ is as shocking as it is predictable. After all, it was mysteriously written and submitted shortly after the manufactured-in-Disneyland measles ‘outbreak’. The indisputable science that is employed by Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD ought to be read by every CA legislator who is entertaining an affirmative vote for SB277. Dr. Obukhanych skillfully deconstructs the many false and fabricated arguments that are advanced by Big Pharma and the U.S Federal Government as they attempt to implement a nationwide Super-Vaccination agenda. When the California Senate refuses to consider authoritative scientific evidence which categorically proves the dangerous vaccine side effects on the schoolchildren, something is very...

[Translate] TAKE PART DAILY Climate change is accelerating fires that produce dangerous levels of pollution. A firefighter pulls a hose while battling flames in the Sand Fire in Placerita Canyon in Santa Clarita, California, on July 24. (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images) David Kirby has been a professional journalist for 25 years. His third book, Death at Seaworld, was published in 2012. As wildfires ravage California and other parts of the American West, a new study warns that choking “smoke waves” from fires will become more frequent, severe, and long lasting as climate change warms the atmosphere. The study includes an interactive map of 561 Western counties that allows the public, scientists, and policy makers to view recent and projected smoke waves—defined as two or more consecutive days with high levels of particulate matter...

[Translate] What’s missing from the media right now…and our experiment to fix it MOTHER JONES Lake County’s Clayton Fire is only five percent contained. Will GreenbergAug. 15, 2016 7:21 PM Courtesy of Cal Fire Lake County, California is ablaze again. A wildfire erupted there on Saturday night, and has already burned 4,000 acres and is only 5 percent contained. The cause of the fire remains unknown.The blaze comes just as the county had started to rebuild from last year’s calamitous fire season. Three major fires—the Valley Fire, the Rocky Fire, and the Jerusalum Fire—took out thousands of buildings and over 170,000 acres in 2015. The Valley Fire, the largest of the three, destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings itself, and killed four people. More than 9,000 firefighters are currently addressing 8 large fires across the...

[Translate] By James Anderson, Truthout | News Analysis (Image: Lauren Walker / Truthout) A man experiencing homelessness in San Diego, Angelo De Nardo, died after being attacked on Moreno Boulevard on July 3, 2016. The assailant had set De Nardo on fire after driving a spike into his head and chest. Another homeless man was critically injured in San Diego’s Midway District the next morning. A few hours later, on July 4 (“Independence Day”), Shawn Mitchell Longley, an unsheltered homeless man, was found dead in Ocean Beach. Two days later, a flaming towel was thrown on Dionico Derek Vahidy; a witness grabbed the towel off the 23-year-old homeless San Diego resident, but Vahidy died of burns four days later. On July 15, on 1800 C Street, Michael Joseph Papadelis, 55, one of the...

[Translate] by Samantha Page CLIMATE PROGRESS CREDIT: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong A shut-down injection well sit next to an almond orchard in Bakersfield, Calif. An environmental group is trying to stop a plan to expand drilling for oil and gas in protected California aquifers. The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Wednesday against California regulators, alleging they failed to properly consider the risks of injecting wastewater into an aquifer near San Luis Obispo, in Southern California. “It’s shocking that Gov. Jerry Brown’s oil regulators are supporting the oil industry’s efforts to get federal permission to dump waste into California’s protected aquifers,” attorney Maya Golden-Krasner said in a statement emailed to ThinkProgress. The underground aquifer — and dozens like it — are protected under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and the EPA...

[Translate] by Kent Heckenlively, JD | The legal fight over SB 277 looks very promising to me, and I am aware of how even in the midst of this scientific reign of terror, some very brave researchers are coming close to solving this problem and recovering our children. I’ve been thinking a great deal about the fight against SB 277 and mandatory vaccinations in California as well as the fabulous documentary, VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, detailing the corruption in the CDC’s vaccine program and the revelations of senior CDC scientist, Dr. William Thompson. I find myself asking a simple question again and again: How do I become the most effective agent for change? Recently I ran across a quote from one of my long-time idols, Nelson Mandela, and it spoke to what I’m...

[Translate] On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, researchers found that people living near fracking activity face a “significantly higher” risk of asthma attacks. By Zoë Carpenter THE NATION A fracking well in the Eagle Ford Shale region, near Karnes City, Texas. (AP Photo / Aaron M. Sprecher) About 386 million years ago, Pennsylvania received a great gift—or, depending on your point of view, a curse: the Marcellus Shale, a formation of black rock and limestone containing vast reserves of natural gas. The formation stretches from New York through the Appalachian Basin, but it’s Pennsylvania that has played host to the most intensive plundering of those reserves since the mid-2000s, when energy companies began to use hydraulic fracturing to free up the gas trapped a mile below the surface of the earth. Pennsylvania will...

[Translate] Democracy & Government 2016 is shaping up to be a big year for ballot measures. By Gail Ablow A reader, Mary Ellen Quinn, asks: “Why does a state like California have so many ballot initiatives and referenda? Could any one of them throw that state into turmoil the way the Brexit has rocked Britain?” Short answer: When California voters go to the polls this November, they will have to plow through the longest, fattest ballot they have seen in almost two decades. In addition to the candidates running for office, there will be 17 ballot initiatives — or “propositions,” as California refers to them — for voters to consider. Overwhelmed voters can blame nonvoters, in part, for the time they will spend poring over the proposed policies. That’s because the number...

[Translate] The debate over vaccine choice and medical freedom in California is heating up. The legality of the state’s new medical mandate will now be questioned in court on the basis of constitutionality, discrimination, and invasion of privacy. A high-class legal team is leading the challenge. New information about a planned secret meeting between a doctor in the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and officials from the California Medical Board was just uncovered which has also lead to a formal complaint being filed against the CDPH for alleged collusion and attempts to illegally garner medical information from student records. Such actions may be a violation of several state laws already in effect. Those fighting California’s new mandatory vaccination law are supporting the legal team’s efforts to overturn what is viewed as a gross...

[Translate] The architect and environmentalist is known for repurposing materials. Now a new device is helping him turn air into water. By Sheila Marikar NEW YORKER MAGAZINE The L.A. architect and environmentalist David Hertz has a knack for repurposing stuff: planks of wood into skateboards, the wings of a Boeing 747 into the roof of a house, crushed LPs (smashed by teens in a gang intervention program) into flooring for a record label’s headquarters. But when a former client told him, last year, that he knew a guy who had invented a way to turn air into water, Hertz was incredulous. “I was, like, sure, let’s try it,” Hertz said. “It sounds like alchemy. And it sounds too good to be true, but let’s try it.” Hertz connected with Richard Groden, a general contractor...

[Translate] Climate by Samantha Page CLIMATE PROGRESS CREDIT: AP Photo/John Locher Water is pumped from a well into an irrigation ditch near Fresno, Calif. California has a lot more usable groundwater than previously thought — but that water might already be in danger from oil and gas extraction in the state. A study released this week by Stanford scientists shows that there is nearly three times more groundwater in California’s Central Valley than earlier surveys had indicated. “It’s not often that you find a ‘water windfall,’ but we just did,” study co-author Robert Jackson, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor at Stanford, said in the study’s release. “There’s far more fresh water and usable water than we expected.” Jackson and his research partner looked at deep groundwater aquifers, between 1,000 and 3,000...